


out, damned spot! out, i say!

by Aerielz



Series: actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea [1]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: AU, Angst, Childhood Trauma, F/M, Gen, I try to emulate flashback film editing in prose and accidentally murder the English language, I've read like 25 pages of fanfic in this fandom and didn't find this au ONCE y'all cowards, cw: blood, rosslyn arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24933775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerielz/pseuds/Aerielz
Summary: His silhouette is a solid figure against the lit interior of the operation theater behind the glass when Leo finds him. Somehow his shirt is still as white as when the day started. His black trousers betray nothing.
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Series: actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1804567
Comments: 30
Kudos: 103





	out, damned spot! out, i say!

**Author's Note:**

> if you're on ao3 reading this and still want to sue me you're looking for a fight and there's no disclaimer that'll stop you from doing it.
> 
> rating goes for some blood and language. if you're squeamish, be advised.
> 
>  **about the tag** : it's just a joke, but it's got to my attention that it comes across as pretty rude. i have nothing but respect for everyone who's been writing on the fandom, and if it's bothering just say the word and i can edit or remove it, no biggie.
> 
>  **soundtrack** : ilomilo, billie eilish.

Josh screams her name, but it dies out mid-word the second he finds blond hair fanning out on the concrete. He balks before he forces himself to walk the distance between where he is and her form on the ground; and Josh thinks he must look ridiculous, because she says—

" _'Tis but a scratch,_ ” smiling despite the pain in her eyes. Blood seeps through the fingers she keeps tight in her chest, tints her lips red when she manages to laugh. It's not until she tries to draw another breath and fails to do it that fear makes it to her voice. " _Josh_."

"Hey, don't talk—,” he says, finally letting himself slowly down on his knees in front of her. ”Don’t talk, I’m right here, it's alright.”

He suddenly feels the need to be very gentle, very precise. Josh is pretty certain he’s not supposed to touch her — not in his office, not in the White House, not when she smiles, not when her blood soaks through the fabric of his pants, because touching her means he could hurt her, somehow he’s _always sure he’s gonna hurt her_ —, but his hand rise to find her face. Just to be sure she’s still there, that she’s still warm. He hovers just shy of her skin, listening to her labored breaths, and watching as her every blink gets longer and longer.

“Hey, no— no, don’t— keep your eyes open for me, can you do that? Hum? _Alright_?—c’mon, _please_ , Donna.” His fingers barely touch her cheek. Her eyes open again, and he flinches. “Yeah, like that, like that, baby, you’re doing great, it’s gonna be alright.”

She feels _hot_. And everything else does, too, like the world around them is on fire. Like she’s gonna to crumble to ashes if he gets too close.

* * *

His silhouette is a solid figure against the lit interior of the operation theater behind the glass, when Leo finds him. He’s leaning back against the wall that separates him and Donna, avoiding what went on beyond it to favor the view of a darkened corridor. Somehow his shirt is still as white as when the day started, and his black trousers betray nothing.

Leo parks beside him and awaits in silence, watching as Josh discreetly shivers in the warm room.

“Have you let anyone take a good look at you, already?,” he asks after a minute.

“I’m not in shock, I’m—,“ Josh tries. “I just— I’m just cold.”

“Let’s do it anyway.”

“I asked her to come.”

“I know.”

“I insisted, Leo.”

Leo looks at the sorrow inscribed in the face of a man he’s knows as a boy, and remembers that Josh is still young, in many ways.

“She’s in good hands, kiddo.”

Josh takes a gulp of air, and nods, in lieu of an answer.

“It’s gonna be a few more hours, you should get some rest,” he insists.

“How’s the president?”

Leo takes the deflection for the warning it is and shrugs.

“Complaining.”

“I had a bullet go through me, I think I have a right to it”, comes from behind them.

The president shuffles closer behind the pair of them, and when Leo turns around he’s met with a lividity that’s to do with worry, as much as loss of blood. He leans heavily on the IV stand and slowly makes his way to them. Somehow, Abbey is not beside him.

“I take it you know how to contact her family, Joshua?,” he says.

“Yes, sir, I do.“

“Find a telephone I can use, would you? I think I better get on a line with Mrs. and Mr. Moss and beg for their forgiveness.”

There’s a part of Leo that wants to object to this, because for everything he doesn’t know about Donnatella Moss, he’s certain that she’d mock the guilt right off his shoulders, wasn’t for the respect she holds for his office.

He opens his mouth, but Josh says—

“With all due respect, sir, I should be the one to do that,” and Leo keeps himself quiet.

“I’m pretty sure the secret service has established a secure line or two, son,” the president replies. “You should try them first.”

Josh tries, but can’t hide a sigh of frustration.

“Yes, sir.”

He takes a last glance at the ongoing surgery, instantly going pale. That and the tightness in his jaw are the only reaction Leo and Bartlet get before Josh reluctantly steps away. They hear him retreat, further and further. A door opens and closes. Silence falls between the two men. There’s something wrong about being here without him, Leo thinks. Wrong, to ask him to leave.

“Don’t you want to wait until we’re sure she’ll get out of surgery alright?”

“In about ten hours she’ll be ordering Josh— hell, _everyone—_ back into the White House, Leo, mad as hell that we’ve waited for her to wake up, and _when_ she does, if she finds out her parents don’t know anything, I’m pretty sure she's finally gonna lose that sense of decorum of hers and join Abbey in her efforts of tearing me a new one,” he explains. The amusement in his voice betrays a pride neither of them knew was there. “I’m taking the safe route. She’s a force to be reckoned with, Donnatella.”

That earns him one of Leo’s knowing smiles.

“Give her a couple decades, the right candidate…” Leo shrugs, “Wouldn’t be surprising to find her doing my job.”

“If Joshua ever decides to set her free she might as well do mine,” Bartlet’s joke carries with it a tinge of sadness. “Now, tell me something, Leo… why is it that I know so much about my Deputy Chief of Staff’s assistant?”

“It’d be because he won’t shut up about her, sir.”

They both share a laugh, but it dies down quickly, as they watch as the doctors slowly try to pull Donna back from the edge of life.

“If she’s not out, Leo… don’t let him do anything too stupid.”

“I’m afraid he’s not going to be the only one to try, sir.”

“Yeah. I don’t think so, either.”

* * *

Josh walks into the waiting room looking like he lost something, and for a second CJ thinks he’s about to tell them that he did. Panic fills her veins, and for all that dealing with the press corps taught her about forming sentences around tragedy, she can’t find the words to ask.

Everyone else raise their heads to look at him, but it’s Sam — bless him — who stands up to guide Josh inside the room.

“How is she, buddy?”, he says, making it look so easy. Like she has the flu.

“She’s, hmm. She’s— she’ll be in surgery for the better part of the night. It’s not simple, it’s—“ Sam slowly walks along him, advancing into the room until Josh has no choice but to sit down. He drops beside CJ, leaning on his knees. “I shouldn’t be here, the president needs a secure line, he wants to talk to her parents.”

Toby circles the cluster of chairs and stops before the three of them. His presence seems to physically keep Josh from getting up.

“I’ll do it”, he says. “Don’t worry about it.”

Sam sits down on Josh’s other side, and both him and CJ put their arms around him a second thought. He tenses, holding onto something she can’t see, but CJ feels something in him give in when her hands run the length of his spine. When he relaxes, his entire body shivers.

“I can’t stop shaking.” Josh looks at her and laughs. “Why can’t I stop shaking, CJ?”

His restlessness calls attention to the overwhelming silence in her head, and to everything that hides behind it. There’s not a scratch on any of them, her clothes are barely rumpled. But she can feel a sick scent of copper rising from Josh, and she knows for sure that there’s nothing in the world that can wipe away the fact that they all now know what Donna’s blood smells like. It stirs in her a wrath she didn’t know she was capable of, and terror in ways she’s never known.

CJ looks up for help, but finds the same pain in Toby’s face; Sam’s eyes filled with understanding.

She looks down again, and answers with the only truth she’s allowed to tell him.

“I’m surprised you’re even standing.”

* * *

Abbey remembers that it took her all of thirty seconds to dislike Joshua Lyman the day she met him. He was all cheek, arrogant to the point of stupidity, and too much of a politician even for her, who had gladly married one. He could be polite, but preferred not to. Could be kind, at the price of a self-important grin. He’d pay the necessary lip-service to the sensibilities of his of peers, but she’d known, right then, that a person like Josh would respect nothing that couldn’t bite back. And few could, much to everyone’s exasperation. Abbey herself rarely had the patience to try. That initial resistance made him something of a distant figure. Because Josh was usually nothing more than a flurry of movement on the background and she had little to do with the electoral math, she never saw much of him. Knowing him came, and still comes, in bits and pieces— glimpses, really. Moments of stillness from a man that even when quiet can’t seem to stand still.

Walking the corridors of GW in direction of the waiting room, Abbey looks ahead through the window on the door a few feet from her and remembers how she finally took a liking to him one morning in New Hampshire.

She went into the store-front one morning to find him banging on his own door, the flimsy frame shaking and threatening to collapse the entire armature that separated his makeshift office from the world.

“I swear to God, Donna, I won’t answer for myself if you don’t open this goddamn door,” he was screaming.

“Well, then huff and puff and bring it down, Joshua,” came another shout from the inside. “I’m not opening.”

Josh buried his hands into his already messy hair, pulling at the ends so hard Abbey thought he might just yank it all free.

“This woman, I swear to fucking god,” he muttered a little too loud.

“What did you just say?!”

He threw his hands up.

“How could you have possibly heard that?!”

She heard the voice from the door answering something in a lower voice, but couldn’t distinguish exactly what the woman behind it said. Joshua, in turn, was loud even in his complaining, and when he whined like a wounded puppy Abbey couldn’t help but smile. She stood there, at the entrance, watching the scene in front of her develop, entirely amused.

“C’mon, Donna,” Josh cried, extending the letters of her name, “I don’t even know what was it that I did, can’t you at least give me _that_?”

“No. Absolutely not, you’ll figure it out, and you’ll apologize.”

“There’s— a fundraiser tonight— _for the love of god_ , Donnatella!”

Abbey didn’t hear when the door opened behind her and whoever was it that came rushing through it didn’t see her there, clipping her in the shoulder while passing by.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t see you.” It was CJ, looking confused. “I didn’t know you’d be around.”

“I just came for the speech, Sam said it was ready…?”

“Yeah, I have it right here, somewhere, actually— I think— just give me a…” she trailed off, bending over a desk behind them to deposit the stack of folders in her arms.

But Abbey was barely paying attention. Beyond the desks and and the mess of posters and banners and stacks of paperwork, Josh was still trying to talk his way out of something with Donnatella. By the way his hands compulsively tested the roots of his hair, he was failing.

“Does that happen very often?,” she asked.

CJ look up, followed Abbey’s sightline, then shrugged, continuing to leaf through a file.

“Couple time a week, perhaps?”, she said, “Ever since she came back.”

Abbey nod in Josh’s direction, smiling.

“I’ve got ten bucks that says that hairline won’t survive Jed’s presidency if we ever get him into office.”

“I don’t know, ma’am…”, CJ said, hopeful. She pulled a couple of leafs from one of the folders. “Donna’s been keeping him from yanking at it so much… it might last. It’s good, too, bald politicians make people uncomfortable.”

“He’s still getting press?”

“‘ _Star political operative leaves DNC’s favorite for underdog campaign_ ’?”, CJ quoted. “It just won’t die down, he’s made idealism sexy again.”

“I don’t think Donna thinks so—”

“You're my assistant, you’re suppose to be _assisting me!_ ,” Josh yelled at the closed door.

“I'm assisting you in your long ass journey to become a decent human being!”, Donna answered in kind.

CJ just shrugged.

“She knows better.”

Now as she reaches the door to the waiting room, Abbey stops. The window lets her see beyond, to where Josh is between Sam and CJ.

“ _You know what? Whatever_ ”, she hears him in a memory. “ _I’m just— I’m gonna go, you stay there and take the high road, I don’t need you, anyway._ ”

_“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”_

_“I don’t!”_ Back then he’d taken a file and turned around, stomping his feet as he walked. _“So you might as well make my life easier— go back to Wisconsin and stay there this time!”_

As soon as the words left his words, he’d stopped. Abbey had never seen someone stand so still in her life. The feelings etched in his face had looked to her like a shadow of such a deep-set sorrow she couldn’t understand what it was.

When she opens the door to the visitors room at GW her eyes instantly find Josh’s. She sees that same shadow there.

“How is she?” Toby asks. Abbey looks up to Toby, and is made aware of the rest of the room. They all look at her expectantly, like children waking up from a nightmare. Josh doesn’t look up. He doesn’t breathe.

“ _Nah. You’d be lost without me_ ”, Donna’d said back then, and Abbey had seen relief wash over him.

“She’s alright”, Abbey says now, and finally registers the guilt that moves Joshua Lyman when she watches him breathe again.

CJ asks, “Can we see her?”

“She’s still out, but you guys can go say hi if you want to.”

As easy as that the room is up and about, negotiating visits and who goes first and does-the-president-need-anything and the-press-corps-will-want-updates. Soon they all have somewhere to be.

Josh stays where he is. When is just him and Abbey, she sits beside him.

“Thought you’d want to be with her…?”, she asks.

He takes a second, and looks at her.

“I do, I just…”, they look at each other for a moment. “Why aren’t you with the President right now?”

It’s not a question, is a comparison. She wonders if he even knows what he just said.

* * *

Donna finds all of them looking at her, when she opens her eyes for the first time. The fear subsides immediately.

“Hey, guys…”, she says, sounding almost surprised. Her voice is barely there. “I’m alive.”

Seven smiles shine down on her.

Despite the painkillers, Donna will remember this image forever.

* * *

(He will too. When Josh takes off his pants from the washing machine for the fifth time and decide that he can still see the blood, he’ll be thinking _she’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive._

He'll sits down on the floor beside the machine in his boxers and bury his hands in his hair. In his mind he’ll see her smile, hear his name falling from her lips, and watch the smoke, and the fire, and the ashes dancing in the sky: staggering beauty, as it falls down like snow.)

**Author's Note:**

> i made myself sad listening to billie eilish and decided that gaza, rosslyn and his sister weren't traumatizing enough separately. sorry? it's unbetaed, too, and if there was ever a point where you couldn't understand what the f was going on it's because i decided to experiment with verb tenses and failed miserably. i might as well apologize for that too.
> 
> anyway. there's at least one more instalment planned (and half written), but maybe there's potential to go beyond? we'll see. drop a comment, leave suggestions, maybe we can figure out some stuff together.
> 
> also: drop an ask on tumblr (same user) with a prompt if you're in the mood for a drabble. prompts and complaining about writing are literally the reasons why i'm on that website these days, so knock yourself out. i have some scripts to work on and the next fic might not be here for a while (a month or so), but drabbles are short and sweet so it's cool.


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